Evaluative Conditioning Effects Research Articles

Bridging the gap between autonomous and predetermined paradigms: The role of sampling in evaluative learning.

Whereas most evaluative learning paradigms remove participants' autonomy over the information they receive, other research traditions have demonstrated that information sampling has an important role in learning. We investigated the impact of information sampling on a central evaluative learning paradigm: evaluative conditioning. We compared a traditional evaluative conditioning paradigm with a paradigm in which participants have autonomy over the stimulus pairings they receive. Participants in the high-autonomy condition showed a strong preference for positively paired CSs. Nevertheless, the strength of evaluative conditioning effects was independent of autonomy. Moreover, high-autonomy participants, but not their low-autonomy counterparts, demonstrated a relationship between sampling frequency and evaluations, in line with the interpretation that sampled stimuli become more positive, whereas ignored stimuli become more negative over the course of the learning phase. The present research provides a cornerstone for integrating several research traditions within and beyond the evaluative learning literature, providing a foundation for new insights and more comprehensive theories of evaluative learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

When do people learn likes and dislikes from co-occurrences? A dual-force perspective on evaluative conditioning

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) research shows that people learn their likes and dislikes due to the co-occurrence of stimuli (CS and US) in the environment. Most recent EC research addressed processes underlying this phenomenon: how do people acquire their likes and dislikes? We address the question of when people learn from co-occurrences. To understand when learning occurs rather than how it occurs, we apply a dual-force perspective (Bless & Fiedler, 2006). We propose that the environment provides a bottom-up force, for example, via spatial and temporal closeness of CS and US. The organism provides a top-down force, for example, by active inferences or existing knowledge about CS and US. We propose that these forces jointly determine when people learn from co-occurrences. We tested this dual-force perspective by creating experimental conditions that should lead to EC effects from both associative and propositional EC process models but should prevent EC effects from a dual-force perspective. Across four pre-registered laboratory experiments (N = 568) and two pre-registered online experiments (N = 440), we found that changing the top-down force weakened and eliminated (Experiments 1–3) or reinstated EC effects (Experiment 4), using a backward (Experiments 1–4) or forward conditioning procedure (Experiment 5–6), while keeping the environmental bottom-up force constant (Experiment 6). Independent of the how question (e.g., associative or propositional), these results support the dual-force perspective as a framework to predict when people learn their likes and dislikes from the co-occurrence of CS and US in the environment.

Unaware Attitude Formation in the Surveillance Task? Revisiting the Findings of Moran et al. (2021)

Moran et al. (2021) report a multi-lab registered replication of Olson and Fazio’s (2001) surveillance task. The surveillance task is an incidental learning procedure over the course of which participants observe pairings of conditioned stimuli (CSs) and unconditioned stimuli (USs) while engaging in a distracting secondary task. Unaware evaluative conditioning (EC) effects are inferred if participants who fail to report the CS–US contingencies on a post-hoc measure show preference for the CS_pos over the CS_neg. Moran et al. claimed to establish such effects relying on the criteria used by Olson and Fazio to exclude contingency aware participants from analyses. Here we reexamine Moran et al.’s data using more fine-grained analytic strategies. We show that the contingency awareness measures used by Olson and Fazio and, by extension, Moran et al. lack adequate reliability and validity. Moreover, even assuming valid awareness measures, Bayesian analyses did not provide unambiguous evidence for unaware EC effects under any exclusion criterion and provided decisive evidence against such effects in most models. Finally, a separate analysis that distinguished between fully aware, partially aware, and fully unaware participants shows that evidence for unaware EC is due to the inclusion of partially aware participants in the purportedly unaware subsample. These reanalyses suggest that unaware EC as indexed by the surveillance task has yet to be convincingly demonstrated. We discuss the conceptual, theoretical, and applied implications of these findings with regard to the potential for unaware attitude formation.

The Role of Trait Inferences in Evaluative Conditioning

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) effect is a change in evaluative responding to a neutral stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a valenced stimulus (US). Traditionally, EC effects are viewed as fundamentally different from persuasion effects. Inspired by a propositional perspective to EC, four studies (N = 1,284) tested if, like persuasion effects, EC effects can also be driven by trait inferences. Experiments 1-2 found that promoting trait inferences (by pairing people with trait words rather than nouns) increased EC effects. Experiments 3-4 found that undermining trait inferences (by questioning the validity of those inferences) decreased EC effects. In all experiments, however, EC effects were still significant when trait inferences were invalid. Taken together, our findings (a) suggest that trait inferences can play an important role in EC effects, (b) constrain theoretical models of EC, and (c) have important implications for applied EC interventions.

No evidence of consolidation of evaluative conditioning during waking rest and sleep

ABSTRACT Research on evaluative conditioning (EC) shows that attitudes can emerge from co-occurrences of stimuli, and accumulating evidence suggests that EC usually depends on memory for these stimulus contingencies. Therefore, processes known to aid memory retention may be relevant for the development of stable attitudes. One such process may be memory consolidation, assumed to be promoted by waking rest and sleep. In two pre-registered experiments, we investigated whether waking rest (vs. cognitive activity, Experiment 1) and sleep (vs. wakefulness, Experiment 2) in between conditioning and measurement of EC, consolidate contingency memory and EC. Contrary to our predictions, waking rest (vs. cognitive activity) promoted neither contingency memory nor EC effects. Sleep (vs. wakefulness) decreased forgetting of contingency memory but crucially, it did not attenuate the impact of counterconditioning on contingency memory. Sleep also did not influence EC effects, nor the reduction of EC by counterconditioning. EC effects in both experiments were predicted by contingency memory. Yet, unexpectedly, EC effects occurred in the absence of contingency memory after waking rest, but neither after sleep nor in the active control conditions. Our findings emphasise a role of contingency memory in EC, but it remains unclear whether this role changes during waking rest.

Are our preferences and evaluations conditioned by the language context?

ABSTRACT Our preferences and evaluations are often affected by contextual factors. One unavoidable context is language. We used an evaluative conditioning (EC) paradigm (pairing neutral stimuli with emotional or neutral stimuli) to investigate whether our evaluations are equally conditioned in a first (L1) and a second language (L2). An EC effect was observed in both languages, however, if in L1 it occurred independently of recollection of the pairing of the stimuli, in second language memory seemed to play a larger role. These results were confirmed using a more implicit measure (memory confusion paradigm). Overall, the results suggest that conditioning occurs both in L1 and L2 but is weaker and more sensitive to memory of the emotional stimuli in L2. The study is the first demonstration that EC is modulated by language and converges with recent findings showing that linguistic context can modulate our behaviours.

Incidental Attitude Formation via the Surveillance Task: A Preregistered Replication of the Olson and Fazio (2001) Study

Evaluative conditioning is one of the most widely studied procedures for establishing and changing attitudes. The surveillance task is a highly cited evaluative-conditioning paradigm and one that is claimed to generate attitudes without awareness. The potential for evaluative-conditioning effects to occur without awareness continues to fuel conceptual, theoretical, and applied developments. Yet few published studies have used this task, and most are characterized by small samples and small effect sizes. We conducted a high-powered (N = 1,478 adult participants), preregistered close replication of the original surveillance-task study (Olson & Fazio, 2001). We obtained evidence for a small evaluative-conditioning effect when “aware” participants were excluded using the original criterion—therefore replicating the original effect. However, no such effect emerged when three other awareness criteria were used. We suggest that there is a need for caution when using evidence from the surveillance-task effect to make theoretical and practical claims about “unaware” evaluative-conditioning effects.

Liked for their looks: evaluative conditioning and the generalisation of conditioned attitudes in early childhood

ABSTRACT Recent studies explored whether attitude formation in early childhood can be explained in terms of evaluative conditioning (EC), the change in liking that is due to the pairing of stimuli. This study sought to replicate and extend this line of research by investigating whether and under what conditions preschool children generalise EC effects from conditioned to novel stimuli. Specifically, two experiments were conducted in which 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 139) observed the pairing of two cartoon characters with two positive and negative images. Afterwards, children evaluated the paired characters as well as other novel characters, which were not previously presented, that varied systematically in their perceptual similarity to the conditioned stimuli (Experiments 1 & 2), or that could be grouped by a categorisation rule (Experiment 2). It was found that children generalised attitudes to perceptually similar stimuli, but not to stimuli related by a categorisation rule, despite evidence for rule-learning. Implications of these findings for attitude development are discussed.

Distinguishing the role of conscious and unconscious knowledge in evaluative conditioning

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to a change in liking of a conditioned stimulus (CS) subsequent to its repeated pairing with a valent stimulus (US). Two studies that bring new light on the highly debated question of the role of awareness in EC were conducted. We developed an innovative method motivated by higher order and integration theories of consciousness to distinguish between the role of conscious and unconscious knowledge about the pairings. On each trial of the awareness test, participants had to indicate the valence of the US associated with a given CS and to make a ‘structural knowledge attribution’ by reporting the basis of their response. Valence identification accuracy was used to evaluate knowledge while the knowledge attribution was used to measure the conscious status of knowledge. Memory attribution indicated conscious knowledge about the pairings while feeling-based and random attributions indicated unconscious knowledge. A meta-analysis of the two studies revealed that valence identification accuracy was above chance level for memory and feeling-based attributions but not for the random attribution. EC was found in the three attributions. While EC effect size was medium for the memory attribution it was small for feeling-based and random attributions. Moreover, Experiment 2 included a delayed test. EC was still present 24 h after the conditioning took place. The results obtained for memory and feeling-based attributions suggest that both conscious and unconscious knowledge may underlie EC. The results obtained for random attribution suggest that EC may also occur without any knowledge of US valence.

Twenty-five years later: A systematic review of the methodological changes in the Trier Social Stress Test and its confounding variables

The neuro-physiological response to stress has far-reaching implications for learning and memory processes. Here, we examined whether and how the stress-induced release of cortisol, following the socially-evaluated cold pressor test, influenced the acquisition of preferences in an evaluative conditioning (EC) procedure. We found that when the stressor preceded the evaluation phase, cortisol responders showed decreased evaluative conditioning effects. By contrast, impairing effects of a stressor-induced cortisol release before encoding were not found. Moreover, explicit memory was not found to be affected by the stressor or its timing. Implications of the timing-dependent effects of stress-induced cortisol release on EC and the relation between stress and associative memory are discussed.

Evaluative conditioning of artificial grammars: Evidence that subjectively-unconscious structures bias affective evaluations of novel stimuli.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to the acquisition of emotional valence by an initially neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus [CS]) after being paired with an emotional stimulus (unconditioned stimulus [US]). An important issue regards whether, when participants are unaware of the CS-US contingency, the affective valence can generalize to new stimuli that share similarities with the CS. Previous studies have shown that generalization of EC effects appears only when participants are aware of the contingencies, but we suggest that this is because (a) the contingencies typically used in these studies are salient and easy to detect consciously, and (b) the performance-based measures of awareness (so-called "objective measures"), typically used in these studies, tend to overestimate the amount of available conscious knowledge. We report a preregistered study in which participants (N = 217) were exposed to letter strings generated from two complex artificial grammars that are difficult to decipher consciously. Stimuli from one grammar were paired with positive USs, whereas those from the other grammar were paired with negative USs. Subsequently, participants evaluated new, previously unseen, stimuli from the positively conditioned grammar more positively than new stimuli from the negatively conditioned grammar. Importantly, this effect appeared even when trial-by-trial subjective measures indicated lack of relevant conscious knowledge. We provide evidence for the generalization of EC effects even without subjective awareness of the structures that enable those generalizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

CS as an effect: action-based evaluative conditioning depends on temporal contiguity

ABSTRACT In this study, we analysed Evaluative Conditioning (EC) with a recently introduced S-R paradigm [Blask et al., 2016. Doing is for feeling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(10), 1263–1268], in which valence first transfers from an affective US to a response and then from this valence-laden response to a novel CS. Based on action control research, the CS in this procedure could be interpreted as an effect of the response. Hence, temporal contiguity of the valence-laden response and the CS should determine whether EC occurs. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment, in which we varied the time interval between the response and the subsequent CS. Results show that EC effects occurred only under conditions of high temporal contiguity thus supporting our assumptions. This finding sheds light on the processes underlying action-based EC in particular and evaluative learning in general.

Make exercise easier: A brief intervention to influence implicit attitudes towards exercise and physical activity behavior

Taking appropriate measures to enhance the positive connection of implicit attitudes towards exercise could be of some significance for the promotion of physical activity. Computerized evaluative conditioning (EC) is a strategy commonly used to alter individual implicit cognition. The aim of these studies was to explore the effects of an EC procedure on implicit attitudes and physical activity behavior over the course of the following week. Study 1 explored whether 100 or 200 EC learning trials change implicit attitudes towards exercise. Study 2 used the EC technology in Study 1 to explore whether modified implicit attitudes towards exercise had any impact on physical activity in the subsequent week. The EC procedure with 200 pairings increased implicit attitudes in comparison to a control group, but no significant effects were found for the EC procedure with 100 pairings. Although there were no significant differences between groups regarding self-reported physical activity, EC learning significantly increased objective physical activity only on the first day in the subsequent week. These findings provide evidence that a single EC learning session can successfully change implicit attitudes towards exercise; however, the effect of EC on behavior is only temporary, lasting in this study for one day. Other studies are needed to develop more effective interventions targeting subsequent physical activity behavior.

Testing the judgment-related account for the extinction of evaluative conditioning

ABSTRACT Evaluative conditioning (EC) effects refer to changes in the liking of a neutral (conditioned) stimulus (CS) due to pairing with an affective (unconditioned) stimulus (US). Some research found that EC effects are resistant to presentations of the CS without the US, whereas other studies found evidence for extinction effects. A recent study found extinction of EC only when participants rated the CS before and after the CS-only presentations, but not when CS evaluation was measured once or indirectly with the evaluative priming task. In two experiments (total N = 2,181), we found no evidence that indirectly measured evaluation is sensitive to extinction, using an indirect evaluation measure with high sensitivity – the Implicit Association Test. However, unlike previous research, we found that evaluation of any stimuli (and not only the CS) before the CS-only presentations decreases self-reported EC effects. Our results are compatible with the conclusion that the extinction of EC is limited to evaluation measured directly. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results, and conclude that the specific conditions (and mechanisms) that change the direct evaluative response are yet to be clarified.

Not by associations alone: The role of contextual factors, individual differences, and propositional learning in the malleability of implicit alcohol attitudes

Alcohol attitudes predict unique variance in drinking behavior and have been the target of manipulations and interventions to reduce high-risk alcohol use among youth and adults. However, whether these manipulations create long-lasting changes in alcohol-related attitudes and drinking behavior is unclear. The current mini-review focuses on evaluative conditioning (EC), a manipulation which pairs alcohol-related stimuli repeatedly with affectively valanced stimuli to create new semantic associations in memory; such associations underlie reflexive or impulsive behaviors like high-risk alcohol use. Across experimental studies, EC has been shown to promote negative alcohol attitudes and reduce alcohol consumption. However, recent evidence suggests the effectiveness of EC may depend on the depth of learning facilitated during the task, which may strengthen the semantic associations through propositional learning. While researchers have experimentally promoted greater depth of learning through the manipulation of contextual factors, we review evidence that alcohol-related individual differences also impact the effectiveness of alcohol EC, particularly when these factors are explicitly linked to the stimuli used during the manipulation. This review provides future directions for researchers and practitioners aiming to shape alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, the malleability of alcohol-related attitudes may depend on propositional learning facilitated by contextual and individual factors. Researchers and practitioners should incorporate these factors into interventions like EC aiming to reduce high-risk alcohol consumption.

The timing-dependent effects of stress-induced cortisol release on evaluative conditioning

The neuro-physiological response to stress has far-reaching implications for learning and memory processes. Here, we examined whether and how the stress-induced release of cortisol, following the socially-evaluated cold pressor test, influenced the acquisition of preferences in an evaluative conditioning (EC) procedure. We found that when the stressor preceded the evaluation phase, cortisol responders showed decreased evaluative conditioning effects. By contrast, impairing effects of a stressor-induced cortisol release before encoding were not found. Moreover, explicit memory was not found to be affected by the stressor or its timing. Implications of the timing-dependent effects of stress-induced cortisol release on EC and the relation between stress and associative memory are discussed.

Effects of Evaluative Conditioning on Implicit Evaluation of Alcohol and Drinking Behaviors: A Direct Replication.

Recent research suggests that evaluative conditioning (EC) can change implicit evaluations of alcohol and reduce drinking behaviors among college students (Houben et al., 2010a). This research has been conceptually replicated in two previous studies. To date, however, no direct and independent replication of the original study has been performed. In this paper, we report a high-powered direct replication of Houben et al.'s (2010a) study. About 168 French college students took part in this preregistered study. Drinking behavior was assessed before and 2 weeks after the intervention. The intervention consisted of 120 trials of words related to alcoholic beverages or soft drinks paired with neutral, positive or negative pictures. The two conditions were factually equivalent and differed only in the repeated pairing between alcohol-related words and negative pictures; in the EC condition, but not in the control condition, alcohol-related words were systematically paired with negative pictures. EC did not change participants' implicit evaluations of alcohol and drinking behaviors. However, EC reduced drinking behaviors among hazardous drinkers. Yet, further non-preregistered Bayesian analysis did not provide much support for this hypothesis. This high-powered preregistered direct replication of Houben et al.'s (2010a) study suggests that the original effects are more fragile than initially thought. The effect of EC on drinking behaviors may be restricted to heavy drinkers, and we found no evidence that this effect is mediated by a change in implicit attitudes. It is necessary to perform further studies to test the original effects in clinical populations.

Cognitive Load Impairs Evaluative Conditioning, Even When Individual CS and US Stimuli are Successfully Encoded

Cognitive load has been shown to reduce both Evaluative Conditioning (EC) effects and CS-US pairing memory. This suggests the successful encoding of CS-US pairings is required for eliciting EC effects. However, an alternative account may be that cognitive load impairs the encoding of individual CS or US stimuli in the first place. We examined this possibility by manipulating the presence or absence of an auditory two-back task at learning, and by measuring the memory for both individual CS and US stimuli and for their pairings. Cognitive load reduced memory for CSs, USs, and CS-US pairings. Of importance, however, it disrupted EC even when the encoding of individual CSs and USs composing a pair was preserved. A mediation analysis also supported the assumption cognitive load reduces EC effects because it hampers the encoding of CS-US relations. This confirms the encoding of CS-US relation is a critical, yet non-efficient, contributor to EC.

Why Does George Clooney Make Coffee Sexy? The Case for Attribute Conditioning

When a celebrity (e.g., George Clooney) endorses a brand (e.g., a coffee type), people’s assessment of this brand typically changes. We suggest that the mere repeated pairing of celebrities with brands imbues brands with the celebrities’ attributes. We call this effect attribute conditioning, which is, more generally, the phenomenon that people assess a stimulus’s attributes differently as a results of its pairing with another stimulus possessing that attribute. We review evidence showing that this effect goes beyond evaluative-conditioning effects, that it is not a demand effect, and that it is easily shown with many attributes (e.g., sexy, athletic, healthy) and many different stimuli (e.g., faces, shapes, brand logos). In addition, we review process evidence supporting the hypothesis that the effect is based on a memory structure that links the mental representations of the paired stimuli. We conclude with a brief outline of possible applied (e.g., marketing) and theoretical avenues for further research.

Is there evidence for unaware evaluative conditioning in a valence contingency learning task?

ABSTRACTIn three experiments we investigated whether memory-independent evaluative conditioning (EC) and other memory-independent contingency learning (CL) effects occur in the valence contingency task (VCT). In the VCT, participants respond to the valence of a target word that is preceded by a nonword. Across trials, each nonword is mostly combined with either positive or negative targets. Schmidt and De Houwer (2012. Contingency learning with evaluative stimuli. Experimental Psychology, 59, 175–182. doi:10.1027/1618-3169/a000141) showed faster and more often correct responses on trials that conformed to this contingency. Additionally, the authors found EC on valence ratings assessed after the VCT. All effects occurred also in the absence of contingency memory. Our Experiments 1a and 1b replicated the CL effects on measures assessed during the VCT (RT, errors) and showed that they occurred in the absence of contingency memory, but they did not replicate the EC effect assessed after the VCT. In Experiment 2, we tested whether this dissociation between EC and other CL effects was due to the different phases (during vs. after VCT) with a CL measure that could be used in both phases. On this measure, the CL effect was memory-dependent after, but not during the VCT. Across measures and experiments, we thus find memory-independent CL during the VCT, but not afterwards.